The invention relates to a method of, and an apparatus for, arc welding in which a consumable electrode is axially fed through a nozzle and a welding arc is maintained between the consumable electrode and a workpiece in a thermally ionized gas which is generated by maintaining a plasma arc in a stream of gas between a non-consumable electrode and the workpiece.
Such a method is described in British Pat. NO. 1,276,110; in this known method the plasma arc is maintained between the workpiece and a separate tungsten electrode located upstream of the nozzle; the minimum distance between the tungsten electrode and the workpiece is comparatively large; this adversely affects the stability of the plasma arc.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method which does not suffer from the said disadvantage and can be performed in a simpler manner by means of a simplified apparatus.